Oracle joins Linux patent commons

On March 27, Oracle and the Open Invention Network (OIN) will announce that Oracle will become an OIN licensee. By doing this, Oracle opens the doors to making some of its patents available royalty-free to any company, institution, or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux.

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OIN members -- which currently include IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony -- agree to assign software patents that might affect Linux to the OIN. These patents can then be used by anyone in Linux without having to pay any royalty fees or having to worry about future law suits.

"We are very pleased to have Oracle become a licensee of Open Invention Network's patents," said Jerry Rosenthal, OIN's CEO, and former IBM's VP of intellectual property and licensing business, in a statement. "Oracle is the global leader in enterprise software. It is a prime example of forward-thinking companies that understand the value inherent in the openness and collaborative culture of the Linux community. OIN has and will continue to acquire intellectual property that will protect Linux developers, distributors and users, today and years into the future."

Oracle chief corporate a Edward Screven added, "We have been active members of the Linux development community for years. We believe licensing Open Invention Network's patents provides assurance to anyone working to make Linux better, including Oracle."

Oracle has not announced at this time what, if any, patents it will be assigning to the OIN. In late 2006, the database giant began offering its own "Unbreakable Linux" distribution, a Red Hat Linux clone.

Since the OIN was founded in November 2005, the organization has accumulated more than 100 strategic, worldwide patents and patent applications, it says. These patents are available to all licensees as part of the patent commons that OIN is creating around, and in support of, Linux. According to the OIN, this patent commons makes it economically attractive for companies that want to repackage, embed, and use Linux to host specialized services or create complementary products.

Patent cross-licensing agreements aren't new. Oracle appearing to grant an automatic patent license to any Linux developer that agrees to abide by OIN's rules, however, is new. With companies like Microsoft continuing to rattle the saber of possible patent litigation against Linux developers, steps like this one may help to remind them that they're not the only ones with large software patent portfolios.

Living (and dying) with Linux in the workplace

Are you looking for a Windows alternative for serious office work? Many people are starting to wonder about their non-Microsoft operating system options, especially given Windows Vista's hefty hardware demands, upgrade costs and license restrictions. Scot Finnie, Computerworld's online editorial director, has already examined using Mac OS X in the workplace.

Now, I take a hard look at Linux by using an enterprise distribution exclusively at work. I'm not simply playing with a test machine; I've been using Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10+ day in, day out to do my job as Computerworld's online managing editor.

After several weeks, I can report that desktop Linux does appear ready for no-frills home users. But things get a bit more dicey for corporate users like me.

If your needs end with e-mail, simple (non-IE-optimized) Web browsing, word processing and spreadsheets, desktop Linux distros, such as SUSE and Ubuntu, are ready for you today -- even in the workplace. At the other end, if you're a high-end technologist, you've probably got the interest, aptitude and ability to get around nonsupport obstacles and dive deep in the guts of your kernel.

But if you're somewhere in between, well, as one of Computerworld's Web developers cautioned me, there's a very steep learning curve in going beyond basic Linux use. If you're a Windows power user who needs applications beyond the basic office and communication tools, if you've been trained on them, customized them, written scripts for them and come to depend on them in your day-to-day work, you're going miss them.

In addition, if you've got a handheld, portable media player or other mobile device, chances are it's not as plug-and-play on Linux as it is with Windows.

That's not a knock on Linux as a piece of software. It's a problem of market share and clout. There's no company with Microsoft's marketing muscle cajoling major software firms, such as Adobe and Intuit, to support the platform.

To be fair, at least there's a possibility of hacking an application when it won't officially run on Linux, which is less often the case with Windows. And that might be a fun challenge at home. But I usually don't want to hack an application at the office. I need to get my work done.

Two spiffy dictionary tools for Linux desktop users

Whether you're learning a foreign language or just need to look up an unknown word or phrase, a good dictionary application can come in handy. JaLingo and StarDict are two such tools. Each sports a polished GUI and a set of features that puts it among the best dictionary applications on Linux.

JaLingo

JaLingo is a no-frills dictionary tool that sports an easy-to-use interface, support for different dictionary formats, and a few useful features. Because JaLingo is a Java-based application, installing it is not that difficult. Download the JaLingo Setup jar file, and run the following command from the Terminal: java -jar jalingo-setup-x.x.x.jar.

You have to run this command as root if you want to install the application into the default /usr/local/jalingo directory. Once JaLingo is installed, you can launch it by running java -jar jalingo.jar.

Since JaLingo doesn't include any dictionaries, the first thing you have to do is download and install one or more dictionaries for the language you need. JaLingo supports several dictionary formats, including DSL, Mova, and SDictionary. A huge collection of dictionaries in the latter format is available through the Sdictionary Community. Here you can also find a guide on how to create your own dictionary files in the Sdictionary format, and a handy online converter to compile custom dictionaries for use with JaLingo. Besides an impressive dictionary collection, the site also offers Wikipedia databases converted into the SDictionary format, so if you fancy the idea of having Wikipedia directly on your machine, then you can download the appropriate database and install it in JaLingo. A word of caution, though: Wikipedia files are large, and it takes some time for JaLingo to process them during installation.

Installing dictionary files in JaLingo is a breeze. Press the Settings button, then press the Add button in the Dictionaries section. Select the dictionary file you want to use and press Continue. Once JaLingo is done processing the dictionary, click the Close button, and JaLingo is ready to go.

The left pane in JaLingo's main window contains three tabs: Articles, History, and Search. To look up a word, start typing it in the search field under the Articles tab. The application automatically narrows the result set as you keep typing. Select the entry from the resulting list, and the related article appears in the right pane. The Search feature allows you to perform a full-text search through both entries and related articles, and all your searches and lookups are stored under the History tab. But that's not all. For example, the Suggest command allows you to perform a sort of similarity search. Right-click on a word in the current article or list, select Suggest, and JaLingo shows words that look or sound like the original one. You can also save the current article as an HTML page. To do this, right-click either on the word you want to save in the Article list or on the article itself in the right pane, then select the Save as command.

StarDict

StarDict is another great dictionary tool that is available with many mainstream Linux distributions, which means that you can install it by using your distro's package manager. As with JaLingo, you have to install dictionaries before you actually start using StarDict. Unlike JaLingo, however, StarDict uses its own dictionary format. You can find a good selection of ready-to-use dictionaries at StarDict's Web site. The site also contains information on how to create custom dictionaries, as well as a detailed description of the dictionary format. If you plan to make your own dictionaries, make sure to download the StarDict Editor, which allows you to compile custom dictionaries.

Tip: The XDXF Web site contains a large collection of dictionaries that you can download in the StarDict format.

Installing dictionaries in StarDict is not as straightforward as the process is in JaLingo, but it's still a relatively simple procedure. Download the tarball version of the dictionary you need, unpack it either using an archive manager or the tar -xjvf dictionary.tar.bz2 command, where dictionary is the exact file name. Move the resulting archive using the command mv dictionary /usr/share/stardict/dic.

Using this technique, you can install multiple dictionaries and use StarDict's manager to manage them.

The lookup mechanism in StarDict works similar to JaLingo: as you type the word you want to look up, StarDict displays a list of possible matches from all the installed dictionaries. But StarDict doesn't limit your search to installed dictionaries: it also allows you to use several pre-defined online dictionaries, and you can even specify additional online dictionaries. To do this, press the Preferences button, select the Main window -> Search Web site, and add your search engine.

StarDict also supports fuzzy queries, which can come in handy when you don't know the exact spelling of a word. To run a fuzzy query, use a slash (/) before the search word. Another of StarDict's nifty features is Scan. Once enabled, you can select a word in virtually any application, and StarDict displays a pop-up window with the related translation.

Final word

JaLingo and StarDict are not just front ends to dictionary files. Using them, you can look up words and phrases in different resources, including Wikipedia and online dictionaries. Both applications also offer features that make them versatile tools whether you are learning a foreign language or just want to expand your horizons.

Beryl: Eye Candy For the Linux Desktop

"Ever wanted to take the window open on your desktop and set it on fire? If you happen to be running Linux, you're in luck.

Jaw-dropping 3D desktop effects first came to the Linux desktop by way of the Novell sponsored Compiz effort which got started over a year ago.

An open source community fork of that effort called Beryl is now moving beyond its base, taking Linux desktop effects to the next level. Beryl, already included in at least one Linux distribution, may end up being a key part of an upcoming release of Ubuntu Linux."
Both Beryl and Compiz include a window manager that takes advantage of OpenGL to produce graphic effects on the Linux desktop. The projects are overlays on top of existing Linux desktop environments like GNOME or KDE.

The 0.2.0 release of Beryl is labeled by developers as being a complete overhaul of Beryl with even more eye candy than its predecessors.

For at least one Beryl project member, though, the additional effects aren't necessarily the most important aspect of the new release.

"The most important thing is the stability," Nicholas Thomas Beryl project team member told internetnews.com. "0.1.x releases were all fairly unpolished, but 0.2 is a really good release. Lots of bug fixes etc."

Thomas also commented that from his point of view Beryl isn't about the effects but rather is about making the desktop more efficient.

That said, there is some new eye-candy that Thomas did take note off, namely the new group plug-in, which lets users arrange windows into groups.

As Beryl continues to mature it also may be moving further and further away from its Compiz roots. Thomas noted that there is a clear distinction between what Beryl wants to be, and what Compiz core wants.

Compiz, he said, wants to develop a desktop environment-agnostic window manager that can be integrated into any environment and shipped with any Linux distribution.

The Beryl project, meanwhile aims to be the complete package, compositing equivalents of applications like panels, docks and menus.

"The big question for Beryl right now is whether we stick with maintaining our own core, or use the Compiz core instead," Thomas added.

Another question for Beryl is who is actually using it. Currently, Beryl is included by default with the Gentoo Linux-based Sabayon Linux distribution.

Thomas said a part of the 0.2.0 roadmap is to get Beryl included into Ubuntu Linux by default because it represents the future.

Though even without Beryl being available by default, the software isn't too difficult to set up as an extra on nearly any Linux distribution. Thomas explained that they there is now a tool available that will do most of the set up for users.

Considering that Beryl is only at its 0.2 release there is still much to be done in upcoming versions.

"The most exciting part of 0.3 will be the development of applications that work around the composite manager," Thomas said.

One Beryl developer is working on a retained drawing interface that will let applications that aren't Beryl plug-ins send drawing requests to Beryl and possibly other compositing window managers.

SCO forced to show hand

ANTI LINUX bad boy SCO has revealed that its entire copyright case against IBM centres on just 326 lines of code.

According to Groklaw, 326 lines represents the "mountain of code" that SCO's CEO Darl McBride has been banging on about since 2003.

IBM says that 11 of 12 files mentioned by SCO are header files, which aren't copyrightable. This is because they don't do anything other than describe how information is shared amongst the operating system. Of SCO's 326 lines, 121 are #define headers.

Biggish Blue argues that they don't make SCO Unix into Linux by any stretch of the imagination. SCO however says that the use of the same headers proves that IBM nicked the code in the first place.

The situation might be a bit different with IBM's counter claim against SCO. IBM claims that SCO has more than 700,000 lines of IBM's GPL'd code in the Linux kernel

Torvalds Talks About GPLv3

That Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, prefers the current version of the General Public License, GPLv2, over the version in development, GPLv3, is no secret. But in a lengthy E-mail response to questions from InformationWeek, he offers a full explanation of what he thinks is superior about GPLv2.

Linus TorvaldsTorvalds says he regrets that the authors of GPLv3 have decided to take aim at political opponents. He has little patience for statements about the "evil and immoral" nature of proprietary code or the "TiVo-ization" of Linux (a reference to set-top box producer TiVo producing a device that runs only one version of Linux), both statements made by Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and one of the authors of GPLv3. "Me, I just don't care about proprietary software. It's not evil. ... It just doesn't matter," Torvalds says. If the authors of GPLv3 try to impart bans on digital rights management and prohibit other perceived evils, they will clutter up the simplicity of GPLv2 and end up telling people what they can or cannot do with GPL software. "The real basic issue is that I think the FSF simply doesn't have goals that I can personally sign up to," he adds.

On the other hand, Torvalds sees the wisdom in the FSF's GPLv2 license, which has been in effect for the past 16 years and governs at least half of the code produced as open source. GPL developers aren't obligated to move their code off GPLv2 to GPLv3 if they don't want to, Torvalds says, noting that some people have assumed he will move the Linux kernel to GPLv3 when it comes out. Consequently, the license commitment for the Linux kernel will be to GPLv2 only, and not "GPLv2 or any later version," the language under which Linux is currently licensed. "I simply don't want to be at the mercy of somebody else when it comes to something as important as the license. ... It's just stupid to do anything else," Torvalds says.

He says the earlier version of the GPL grants users the full right to use the software with two or three straightforward conditions that apply equally to everyone. Torvalds endorses the giveback provision that some open source licenses, such as the Apache or Eclipse licenses, avoid. Those who use only GPL code and don't participate in its continued improvement are less likely to engage developers and get their specific needs answered in using the code.

"That's a kind of beauty to me," he says. "People are encouraged to chip in and help, not because of some political agenda or because they try to be 'good people,' but simply because it helps themselves more than not chipping in. We can all be selfish and do the things that make sense for ourselves. It really boils down to a very simple equation: 'I will get more effort out of other people working on it, too, than I have to give back.'"

There may have been political views behind the original GPL, but version 2 lets people of different political views work together. "But the FSF seems to want to change the model," Torvalds says. The drafts of GPLv3 have been about what you can and can't do with that code. "That's not a direction I want to follow in," he says

Top five PC manufacturers fail naked PC test

ZDNet's reporters posed as undercover buyers to identify the policy of the top-five PC vendors in terms of supplying systems without an operating system, known as naked PCs. A naked PC gives IT professionals freedom to install the operating system of their choice.

But the ZDNet investigation showed that none of the five manufacturers would sell any PCs without Windows, our reporters found.

The reasons — or excuses — were varied.

Acer said it would give our reporter a refund of £30 for not using Windows, but would only make a refund if we drove to its Plymouth "repair" centre. In contrast to other reports, Dell refused to refund the Windows software if it went unused. Instead it offered to cancel the shipping charge of £50 as a compromise.

We backed up our undercover enquiries with official calls to every one of the five vendors. Two of the five — Acer and Toshiba — would not discuss the matter with us. Dell, HP and Lenovo claimed it was possible to buy naked PCs from their company — but our attempts to follow their guidance to buy one proved impossible.

Dell and HP both claimed it was possible to buy a naked PC from them, but we were unable to buy one from either vendor. Lenovo told us it sells PCs with pre-installed Linux, but it could not tell us how we could buy such a system.

Microsoft has placed considerable pressure on a number of PC vendors not to sell systems without Windows. Critics have suggested that vendors have yielded to such pressure because they are afraid of losing their bulk purchasing discount with Microsoft. Others have suggested that it would cost PC vendors considerably more in unit costs to produce naked PCs.

Ranjit Atwal, Gartner principal analyst, is pessimistic about the future for naked PCs. "The market for Linux is probably not big enough for them [suppliers] to go down that route," said Atwal, adding that he thought the number of users wanting to use Linux at the desktop was "in the small single digits".

"To do that [provide systems without Windows] costs them money," he argued.

Yet many customers have demanded naked PCs. A user forum set up in February by Dell has been inundated with such requests.

While customers find it difficult to get naked PCs, some of the vendors are beginning to apply more thought to loading Linux on PCs for both high-street buyers and corporates. HP is one such company. It recently began a feasibility study that tested the public's appetite for the operating system.

"We carried out a test marketing exercise and made Linux PCs available to users," explained Peter Murray, director of enterprise server and storage at HP. "It was disappointing and we had very little interest. We looked at the exercise and we think we may have got the marketing wrong so we are trying it again."

Murray believes there is a market for Linux in the UK but is also aware of the issues facing any large supplier who wants to make Linux boxes available. "It means diverting production lines and that is a lot of money and so we have to prove the business case," he said. However, he made it clear that he is enthusiastic about the idea and wants to make it work. "We just have to show it is worthwhile," he said.

Dell's position is less clear. The company has said it is keen to promote Linux and systems ready to run with Red Hat Linux are available on its site, but only in the US. While Linux is not available to UK users, Dell is currently assessing user interest on its own site and is asking for input from potential Dell/Linux users.

We have used the latest figures on PC sales from Gartner to identify the top five vendors. We detail our findings one vendor at a time over the following five pages.

How get change root Password

You can log in with single-user mode and create a new root password.

If you are currently set up to log in to X rather than a
console, you will need to press [Ctrl]-[X] when prompted. When you
see the boot: prompt, type linux single to enter single-user mode.
Some of the filesystems will be mounted, and you will find a bash#
prompt when you've entered single-user mode (note that this prompt
will look somewhat different than the prompt you're accustomed to).

Now, you can change root's password by typing

bash# passwd root

Will Microsoft Buy Novell?

The answer to that question is probably not, though the thought had crossed my mind. In a way they already have done in a small way, they have given Novell approximately a quater's worth of net profit in return for what appears to be a cut of all Open Enterprise and SUSE Linux sales. Although no shares have changed hands, this, in itself, seems to me to be a kind of "virtual" company sale. This is even not considering the palaver regarding the patent covenants....


During this last week I asked someone much wiser than myself "How come a company like Novell can be so easily duped?", I then quickly followed it on with the question "Or am I simply missing something important here?". He then asked me what I meant and I proceeded to explain my thoughts.

Novell has given away an ace for Microsoft to use as a weapon in convincing customers that there may be IP problems with GNU/Linux, despite any evidence of any kind backing this up, spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt over that in the enterprise. FUD in the original sense of the acronym. I find it difficult to believe that Novell would find this advantageous; for them to admit that there are IP issues in GNU/Linux would mean they could not legally distribute it, and for them not to would place them in an inconsistent position with the covenant and agreement they have signed. They seem to have publicly chosen the latter of the two. What they say privately I do not know.

The successful mass-deployment of SUSE enterprise distributions depends on the same thing as all of us in the GNU/Linux market, that is mass-acceptance of the GNU/Linux philosophy there. It is difficult to compete with Microsoft on Microsoft's terms, they are too good at it, and their current monopoly means they legally, and sometimes illegally, place restrictions on competing technologies. I find it hard to believe that Novell's management team believe they can increase revenue by following a path that increases Microsoft's install base in their area. After all, Microsoft do not have a track record of being nice about such things.

Novell also justify the agreement by claiming it will improve interoperability between Microsoft and GNU/Linux. I, as a member of the free software community, am not convinced by this. And I am not the only one. Jeremy Allison's interview with LinuxWorld shows that he is just as skeptical, if not more so, and he is an ex-Novell employee.

Did Novell really believe the agreement would result in increased Linux revenue (to what it would have been)? Do they really think interoperability with Microsoft will be improved? Or have I simply got the wrong end of the stick? The person of wisdom whom I asked put a different perspective on it.

He explained that Novell's old cash cow was NetWare; however, due to some silly decisions they made, and some clever ones Microsoft made, they lost that server market in a major way to Microsoft. In order for Netware to then get back their market, or even survive in the long term, they needed to inter-operate with the Microsoft protocols.

He went on to say that Microsoft, being well aware of this, started to not give the protocols to Novell. This placed Novell in a difficult position, and that was a major reason why Novell went into the GNU/Linux business despite the fact Red Hat were well entrenched as the enterprise market leader there. Microsoft were killing NetWare, and Novell needed to diversify.

Linux not ready to kill Unix -- yet

Despite the relentless march of Linux, major vendors believe commercial Unix releases aren't ready for the scrapheap yet.
As Linux evolves from its single-processor roots into larger-scale applications, many market watchers have predicted that it will eventually replace the remaining commercial Unixes: Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX, Sun Microsystem's Solaris, IBM's AIX and SGI's Irix.

"It costs between $150 million and $200 million a year to generate your own Unix system and you then have to say to yourself 'Am I going to see that amount of extra revenue if I put in these features?'" Linux International executive office Jon 'maddog' Hall told iTnews.
However, Unix vendors argue that the needs of large-scale enterprise users haven't yet been met by Linux.

"There'll always be a role for Solaris, and there's tremendous investment in Solaris," said Duncan Bennet, director for infrastructure solutions and software at Sun.

Part of that can be attributed to Sun's increasing focus on making Solaris available for Intel's architectures, as well as its own SPARC processors, he said.

"There's specific things that you might want for specific applications that, for a long period of time, won't be available in Linux," said SGI Australia managing director Bill Trestrail, citing the example of complex real-time applications.

SGI has increasingly concentrated on Linux as a strategic platform. "For the last year, we've been proving extremely large systems in complex environments," Trestrail said. However, the company remains committed to maintaining Irix.

"From our perspective, Linux is going to take a lot of the market share from Unix. Will it take all of it? Probably not.

"There's things that we can do in our kernel as the owner of an operating system to meet the very specific needs of a small community of users that we wouldn't do with Linux, because we're not going to fork the code. We think it will get there but it's not there today."
Other vendors agree that it's hard to predict when Linux will finally supplant Unix.

"It's a crystal ball question," said Geoff Lawrence, Linux business manager for IBM ANZ. "At this stage, there is no prospect of that happening.

"There are a number of commercial Unixes that have atrophied over the years, but if you look at the ones from the key vendors, they seem to be just as strong. They're co-existing quite happily."

HP tells a similar story. "HP has a three OS strategy going forward," said Bdale Garbee, the company's chief technical officer for Linux.

"Our goal is to make sure that Linux is on an equal footing with our Windows and our commercial Unix work in all the ways that matter."
Unix vendors can draw some comfort from recent market data. According to IDC, Unix server revenues were US$4.1 billion in the third quarter of 2003.

While that represented a quarter-on-quarter decline of 3.8 percent, the numbers were up 4.3 percent year on year.

Nonetheless, Linux continues to grow much more quickly, growing 51.4 percent year-on-year to reach US$743 million in the same time frame. As many companies utilise free Linux distributions, revenue data also doesn't fully reveal how many users have taken up the open-source operating system.

"The history of all these Unix systems came from a different time and space," said Linux Internationall's Hall.

"Machines cost $150,000 for a million instruction machine that had a quarter megabyte of memory in it and a 200MB disk, and now you can get a machine for $200 that's a hundred times faster. You can afford to throw away a few cycles of your CPU power because your OS isn't necessarily tailored exactly to your hardware and application."

LinuxPlanet: Novell BrainShare 2007 Preview

When Novell's BrainShare users' show opens its doors this Sunday, Microsoft will be on hand for the first time ever. With and without this controversial, recently minted partner, Novell will issue announcements around SUSE Linux in areas that include products, training, and new customer wins, say company sources. But also in Salt Lake City, the site of the annual Novell shindig, open source advocate Bruce Perens will throw a "Rain on Novell's Parade" press conference protesting the Novell-Microsoft agreement first unveiled in November of last year.


And could a bit of discontent be brewing elsewhere, too? A month after Novell and Microsoft forged their alliance last fall, the two companies teamed up with Sun Microsystems and about 20 other companies to form the Interop Vendor Alliance. Microsoft will serve as a platinum sponsor of BrainShare 2007, said Bruce Lowry, a Novell spokesperson. But Sun won't be exhibiting at BrainShare at all.

In fact, according to the list of some 35 exhibitors currently posted on the BrainShare Web site, the one and only member of the Interop Vendor Alliance to take out a booth at BrainShare this year is AMD.

Meanwhile, with the debut of Linux rival Red Hat's latest enterprise server still only a couple of days old, and Perens' press conference suddenly on the horizon, Novell is keeping a rather close lid on details of its own announcements until the traditional string of Monday morning keynotes.

But more generally speaking, Novell's BrainShare product announcements will cover the "infrastructure and management" of SUSE Linux, including news about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Open Enterprise Server (OES), teaming and collaboration, and Zenworks resource management, said Kevan Barney, another company spokesperson.

With the show just around the corner, Novell is expecting around 5,000 developers, resellers, and other users at BrainShare 2007--really no more, and no less, than appeared last year at the user conference in Salt Lake City, according to Lowry.

Lowry told Linux Planet that the company isn't targeting BrainShare at a different audience this time around, despite any impact of the Novell-Microsoft deal. But he acknowledged that this year's BrainShare will include conference tracks geared to "the interoperability work we're doing with Microsoft, [so] that's certainly new."

Lowry also reiterated Novell's frequent refrain, voiced by various officials over the past several months, that SUSE Linux users are mainly pleased about the Microsoft pact.

"Our customers have been very positive on the Microsoft agreement, and we expect they'll want to hear more about how we're putting meat on the bones of that agreement," he told Linux Planet.

Still, the Novell-Microsoft deal hasn't exactly been universally popular in the Linux and open source communities, right from the get go. As part of the earlier negative fallout, Jeremy Allison, a member of the Samba open source project, protested the alliance by quitting his job as a high-level programmer for Novell.

And Perens, primary author of the GNU contract, put together a petition last fall demanding that Novell drop the patent protection part of the agreement.

Now, in inviting members of the media to his Monday press conference, Perens says that the "Rain On Novell's Parade" event will cover the Novell-Microsoft agreement; software patents vs. open source; Novell's "bad faith actions toward their own developers;" and "GPL 3, and how it will prevent Novell from going forward with new innovations from the open source developer community, while other Linux distributions will be able to use the same software."

Perens will present his press conference at a hotel directly across the street from the Salt Palace conference center that's been the long-time home of the BrainShare show.

Novell's Lowry said this week that, outside of the interoperability work by Novell and Microsoft, other BrainShare sessions will revolve around Novell's workgroup, systems and resource management, and identity and security management products.

Yet while Red Hat was busy rolling out RHEL 5 this week, and Perens drew up preparations for his press conference in Salt Lake, Novell made a couple of announcements on the other side of the Atlantic that touched on some of the same areas slated to be addressed at BrainShare.

Novell's new Zenworks Configuration Management, intro'd at this week's CeBIT show in Germany, is designed to use integration with both Microsoft Active Directory and Novell eDirectory in remote desktop configuration by system administrators, according to press materials issued over the wire.

Also, in conjunction with the SAP LinuxLab, Novell announced that the high availability storage infrastructure in SLES 10 is now available for SAP NetWeaver and mySAP Business Suite.

Mandriva One + Metisse – The Pefect Setup

Metisse is a window manager developped by the In Situ project. It is available under the GPL Licence. Mandriva Linux is using Metrisse in its latest Live-CD. Metisse differs from a classic 3D desktop ("the cube") in the way that it offers innovative windows interactions, thus enforcing work efficiency. It is using basic openGL commands for most of its feature and can run on entry level 3D graphic cards. This workshop describes the hard disk installation and Mandriva One setup. Additionally you wll find information how to use the Metrisse 3D Desktop.

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OSWeekly: Why Dell Is Really Saying No to Linux

"By now, many of you may be wondering why Dell is passing up such a great niche market by not offering Linux as an alternative OS option to Windows. We have talked about how this would only prove to benefit a company like Dell, but we have also acknowledged the fact that it will likely never happen.

"Then I came across this piece from ArsTechnica. They rightfully point out that Dell is not equipped to handle Linux support for the desktop. And they continue their proper understanding in stating that Dell can barely handle supporting Windows issues. Then it occurred to me: why must Dell 'support' Linux at all? Check this out..."

Complete Story

Linux.com: Joe Barr Rips Proprietary Software Vendor a New One

"It seems to be a trend among some proprietary software vendors: attacking open source with lies. The latest appears in this week's Network World's Face-off, which features a slop-bucket full of self-serving hogwash by Ipswitch's Roger Greene entitled 'Don't trust your network to open source.'

"If ignorance were a crime, Greene would be swinging from the gallows. His pathetically malinformed drivel is enough to make even hardened PR flacks cringe with embarrassment. Greene's marketing agenda is based on what he claims are three myths about open source. Just for the fun of it, let's take a look at his claims..."

Complete Story

Migrate to Open Source? Why not?

Saat ini di Indonesia, penggunaan software bajakan masih merajalela dan terkesan wajar-wajar saja. Padahal menurut UU HAKI (Hak Atas Kekayaan Intelektual) yang lebih dikenal sebagai copyright, hal ini jelas merupakan tindak kriminal dan bisa dituntut secara hukum. Meski mungkin saat ini belum banyak kasus yang tertangkap.

Banyak faktor yang menyebabkan maraknya penggunaan software bajakan di Indonesia. Selain karena harga software original yang sangat mahal, juga karena pendistribusian software original masih sangat terbatas (dalam hal ini penjualan CD software Original hanya ada di kota-kota besar) dan mendapatkan software bajakan jauh lebih mudah dan murah. Bahkan tidak perlu beli karena ada rental-rental CD software. Selain itu juga karena peraturan perundang-undangan mengenai HAKI juga baru-baru saja disahkan.

Sebenarnya ada pilihan yang jauh lebih murah dan aman untuk komputerisasi terutama soal software. Mulai dari Operating System, sampai aplikasi-aplikasi yang sering digunakan. Solusi tersebut adalah open source.

Mungkin saat pertama kali mendengar istilah open source, orang awam akan mengira bahwa software-software tersebut untuk linux. Ha ini salah besar, karena pembuat software open source sebagian besar telah membuat software-nya untuk banyak platform dengan fungsinya masing-masing yang dapat menggantikan fungsi software komersial lain.

Misalnya Open Office dari OpenOffice.org dengan fungsi office suite yang lengkap seperti Microsoft Office. GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) sebagai pengganti dari Adobe Photoshop untuk image editing. Keduanya dapat didownload dan diinstall pada PC secara gratis, baik di platform Linux maupun Windows.

Berbeda dengan software komersial pada umumnya yang hanya menyediakan executable file untuk setupnya, software open source juga menyertakan source code dari program yang bersangkutan. Sehingga penggunanya bisa menambah atau mengurangi atau bahkan mengubah program tersebut sesuai kenginannya. Mungkin ini terdengar susah, dan seolah hanya user expert yang sudah berpengalaman yang bisa menggunakannya. Tetapi sebenarnya, untuk user newbie, paket tersebut bisa langsung di-kompile, dan software bisa diinstall ke PC. Bahkan kebanyakan program open source juga menyertakan paket binary yang pre-compiled jadi sudah executable dan bisa diinstall seperti kebanyakan software di platform Windows.

Selain itu, ada peraturan tertentu dalam pendistribusian software open source. Seperti dijelaskan di websitenya http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php. Di situ dijelaskan bahwa liscense dari open source harus memperbolehkan penjualan atau pemberian secara cuma-cuma software tersebut. Dan tanpa harus memberikan royalti untuk sang pembuat. Namun tetap harus mencantumkan nama pembuat awalnya. Kemudian terkait dengan aturan pendistribusiannya, software open source bisa sangat murah atau bahkan gratis, tanpa harus melanggar copyright dari pihak tertentu.

Begitu banyak keuntungan yang didapatkan dari penggunaan open source. Selain murah, tidak melanggar hukum, juga bisa dimodifikasi sesuai kebutuhan dan dijual kembali asal masih mengikuti aturan-aturan distribusi open source.

Demikian sedikit wacana tentang open source yang merupakan solusi untuk komputerisasi yang murah, dan menekan pembajakan atas kekayaan intelektual. Apakah kita siap untuk migrasi ke open source?

How to make a Linux live CD

These instructions will help guide you through the process of making your own Linux live CD. Basically the process involves downloading a Linux disk image file in .ISO format, and then burning the disk image to a CD in a special way.

If you have any difficulties, ask for help in the forums and I will try to answer your questions there.

* Step 1: Download Linux
* Step 2: Check the Linux ISO file for errors
* Step 3: Burn Linux to a CD
* Step 4: Boot the computer from the CD using Knoppix as an example
* How to save your files and settings

Custom SquirrelMail Login Pages for Virtual Hosts mini-HOWTO

This little tutorial will show you how to create custom SquirrelMail login pages for many virtual hosts, or in plain English, you have one copy of SquirrelMail and host many web sites on a single server. The purpose is to provide a unique login page for each web site domain without installing multiple copies of SquirrelMail. This is very useful if you are running a webhosting business or you host your friend's web sites (like I do) and you don't want SquirrelMail branded with your name but theirs. If that isn't a good enough reason then how about the fact that the default SquirrelMail login page is boring and you should jazz it up with a custom web site theme.

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